22nd July,2008
Press Statement
NIGER DELTA CRISIS: PANACEA FROM AFENIFERE
The gridlock in the Niger Delta has become the most burning national
discourse in Nigeria and is also acquiring an international character
especially with British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown’s offer of military
assistance to Nigeria and President Yar’Adua’s recent mortgage of
Nigeria’s sovereignty by soliciting for military assistance from Britain
to kill our own people.
For these many years the people of the Niger Delta have continued to
protest the despoliation of their environment and their exclusion from
participation in all the economic activities surrounding the exploration
and production of oil and gas in their region. These are genuine
grievances. The people deserve to participate in these activities on their
own right and not by proxy. If they are allowed equity participation on
the basis of their ownership of the land where oil wells are located,
there would not have been this crisis.
Their agitation assumed a frightening dimension lately with the
introduction of militancy occasioned by the seeming frustration with
dialogue and peaceful protests which have not been productive in the
estimation of the people.
The militant dimension has jolted the Federal Government of Nigeria to the
realization that something has to be done to arrest the drift in the Niger
Delta. Unfortunately, it has not been able to read the situation correctly
and in the process failed abysmally to make the right moves. Yet social
scientists have argued correctly that a social problem is not resolved
either by denying its existence or ascribing it to the wrong source.
Rather than seeing the unsettled situation in the Niger Delta as an
expression of bottled up anger at the social paradox of poverty in the
midst of wealth, the Yar’Adua government has continued to see the“criminal activities” going on in the Niger Delta. Afenifere does not
endorse kidnappings and other militant activities; but we cannot decree to
an oppressed people how they should fight to liberate themselves.
Indeed there are criminal elements who are taking advantage of the
struggle. But our own experience in the June 12 struggle showed there were“criminals” at the fringes who were always ready to capitalize on the
struggle atmosphere to loot shops and vandalize cars; but that did not
justify the annulment or criminalize the just political demand of the
time. In any case, it is the criminal neglect of responsibility by the
Government that produces these “criminals” in the first instance.
Were Gordon Brown and Yar’Adua imbued with this understanding, their
meeting in London last week would have been totally unnecessary. And if
they had to meet at all, it would have been to deliberate on delivering
bread to the Niger Delta and not bomb. After all, we do not hear of“criminal activities” by militants in Dubai that produces lesser oil
than the Niger Delta because the welfare of Dubai people is guaranteed.
The condemnations that have trailed Gordon Brown’s offer from Nigeria
and from Nigerians in the UK who made Yar’Adua’s visit a non-event and
subsequently took the message to Downing Street clearly capture the mood
in our country today. Outside a few selfish opinion leaders from the North
(whom we advise to read Col. Abubakar Umar’s recent views on the Niger
Delta issue) the aggregate of opinion is that we cannot use the mindset
that we used to create the Niger Delta crisis to resolve it.
We remind Britain in particular that hard tactics did not achieve any
result in Burma, Basra and Afghanistan. Britain has had to resort to
negotiation after all those needless wars. Even Northern Ireland has
proved that negotiations work better than bullets. Gordon Brown must
therefore join the search for solution through dialogue and not foment war
in our country.
It is towards this end that Afenifere offers the following recipes as a
way out of the Niger Delta crisis:
(1) Derivation Principle: It is a trite principle of Federalism that a
people must enjoy derivation from resources coming from their land. This
is recognized by the constitution of Nigeria and the Minerals Act.
Afenifere is of the strong view that a just derivation for the Niger Delta
region will considerably bring down the tension in the Niger Delta. If
President Yar’Adua is sincere about resolving the crisis, he does not
need a “summit” or “consultation” to forward a bill to the
National Assembly to increase derivation to the Niger Delta to any
percentage around the 50% demanded by the people. This should also be
extended to the minerals found in every corner of Nigeria including Value
Added Tax (VAT) marine activities and hydro electric power.
(2) Electoral Reform: Issues have been raised about the mismanagement of
what has gone to the Niger Delta in recent time. While we consider it a
non-sequitor to tie the rights of the Niger Delta to the“wastefulness” of their leaders, we are at the same time not unmindful
of the irresponsible leaderships in most parts of Nigeria caused by an
electoral system that ensures that leaders are imposed on all states from
INEC headquarters in Abuja. We therefore propose that we must evolve a
credible electoral system that allows the wish of the people to prevail at
the polls. The open-secret/ballot system that produced the credible June
12 elections result is hereby commended for all future elections. We
cannot hold any people responsible for the activities of leaders they did
not elect and whose financial crimes are also to be looked into by a
commission the looters collude with Abuja to control and regulate.
(3) National Restructuring: The Niger Delta is a festering sore today as a
result of many years of criminal neglect, because it harbours oil that
accounts for about 95% of our economic activities. Other injustices are
going on because of the lopsidedness of our Federation. The wonderful
sharing formula that saw over 85% of the strategic grains reserve going to
the Northern part of Nigeria recently is just a tip of the iceberg.
Unless we restructure the polity to give autonomy to the component units
of the Federation, we cannot get out of this gridlock.
Afenifere therefore restates its call for an urgent convocation of a
Sovereign National Conference to look into the structures that have not
allowed for peace, development and progress.
‘Yinka Odumakin
National Publicity Secretary